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WHKC, sleepy sounding

R

RickF

What's up with WHKC today? I thought it was Sunny 95. Man it put me to sleep this morning. Then I thought it would be better when Robb Case was on tonight, Wrong, and he even said it sounded like Sunny 95. WTF?
 
To me it's musically been sounding like just another commercial FM station for a long time now. I guess the fun for Robb is in challenging the big dogs on their own terms, and not in doing anything special on the noncomm band.
 
This is kind of off topic, but i think that there are alot of people out there listening to 91.5. It's too bad that they can't really measure it acurately. Everytime I go into Video Central on Livingston, they have it playing all over the store and I'm guessing they aren't the only ones.
 
I heard Robb's comment on Saturday night. He was doing the weather forecast and had said something like it's gonna be sunny and 95 tomorrow. Then he said something to the effect of "you write the next line."

I don't mind the slower songs, it mixes up the pace a bit. But I agree, the more upbeat the better, and the less likely I'll tune away to another station.

But kudos to Robb for keeping the 80s alive. Didn't we say on here that the format would be gone by March? It's going strong now for what 6 or 7 months? It's cool.

The best thing we can do for Robb is spread the word to your friends and enemies alike! 91.5 is awesome!

Heather
 
I would imagine Rob will be tired of playing radio and sell it at some point. It's my guess the only reasmon that hasn't happened is he can't get what he wants for it. Of course he can't keep running a juke box forever!!!!

I'm surpurised St. Gaberial radio hasn't gone after that instead of 1270.
 
I'm certain 91.5 has a good portion of the market share (not 50% mind you, but good for non-comm). It's too bad he can't generate an income from running commercials. He must have access to some deep pockets to have lasted this long.

He obviously lives where it's Always Sunny and 91.5. ;)
 
I don't really see that much has changed, save some nice freshening of the music. 91.5's always gone through sleepy stretches, but then they come roaring back with a great upbeat sound (sorry, Jake...). It does concern me that the one time I was listening when the owner (Robb) was live, it was almost nonstop snoozeville. (Although I wouldn't make anything of the Sunny 95 quip.)

I basically agree with everything Heather said. A few slower songs are fine, even welcome, as long as they are good ones, appropriately slotted, and the station doesn't get carried away with them.

Thanks to Robb for the 6 months -- and hopefully many more -- of the current format. With the local programming and competitive proclivities of CC and other owners, how else would we ever get something like this -- ON A DECENT FM SIGNAL ?? Even with commercials?

C'mon, doesn't anyone here have access to non-comm ratings? Of course, as an adult format this would need some kind of promotion AND on-air calls/frequency reminders to get significant ratings, even without commercials.
 
That's what I was about to ask, Nu_Roo -- the non-comm ratings aren't publicly released but they do appear in the book, right? Is it illegal for someone to post its 12+ here who receives the thing?
Heather, when I want to inflict some real pain on my enemies, I don't tell them about 91.5 -- I tell 'em about 'YTS! Speaking of which, what's the smallest decimal rating that Arbitron publishes? I found out earlier this month that they will print a 0.4, but what about a 0.3 or 0.2? And if a station does fall completely off the chart, is it still considered to be in "last place"? Or does that formal distinction only go to the last one that actually appears in the thing?
 
Jake, I've seen Tim Feran publish non-comm ratings in the Dispatch, so I assume it's legal.  They're probably only available for quarterlies.  I do know that they come out a week or two after the commercial ratings, so Winter should have become available almost a month ago.   Didn't you mention that you know Tim?  Maybe you could contact him.
 
Hmmm,  maybe I spoke too soon.  It seems as if things may indeed be changing.  Lately I had been listening primarily late nights and overnights, and everything sounded prety much the same as before.  That's what my first post in this thread was based on.  But I've been listening midday today, and it sounds like a gold-based mainstream AC.  More uptempo and a lot more listenable than either SNY or LZT, but still very different and less interesting than the "old" sound.  Fairly uptemo --yes...edgy or "oh wow" -- no.  Heavily weighted toward female artists and with more ballads than before.  In one hour I heard four Madonna songs.  And two Phil Collins were played back to back.

But who knows?  By the time I post this, the old sound could be back, and I don't necessarily mean due to intentional dayparting.  Or maybe not.
 
Nu_Roo_2 said:
But who knows? By the time I post this, the old sound could be back, and I don't necessarily mean due to intentional dayparting.
Click to expand...

Sure enough, this seems to be exactly what happened. Things really "picked up" at about 3pm, and its been sustained for a couple hours. Sounds like the good 'ol 91.5 I've (usually) enjoyed a lot for six months now. Hope it stays that way as long as possible.
 
Wow, thank you SO MUCH for the great link, Heather. Skimming through the listings doesn't hurt nearly as much as listening to the stuff! (Aw, that was mean -- sorry.)
By the way, I talked to Tim F. (I'm Tim A. in real life) and he's going to get back to me with some ratings information. Predictions, anyone? And don't just say "good" like our daring Mr. Riley -- I mean SPECIFIC predictions!
 
jakej said:
Wow, thank you SO MUCH for the great link, Heather. Skimming through the listings doesn't hurt nearly as much as listening to the stuff! (Aw, that was mean -- sorry.)
By the way, I talked to Tim F. (I'm Tim A. in real life) and he's going to get back to me with some ratings information. Predictions, anyone? And don't just say "good" like our daring Mr. Riley -- I mean SPECIFIC predictions!
Click to expand...

Thanks, Tim! I hate to say it, but I'd be surprised by anything more than about a .3-.5. (OK, maybe giving a range is cheating, but that's a small one!) Anyway, I'm NOT saying that because of the music!!! I hope I'm wrong and that they show higher (if at all), but again, I don't see how ANY adult-targeted station -- even with a good signal -- can create much awareness through just word of mouth with NO franchise building activites besides the music. Heck, they only say the calls once an hour, have no positioners or slogans, etc. And some people rarely if ever venture to the non-comm end of the dial. Any any momentum which *were* to occur with this kind of "station passivity" would be VERY slow for an adult station. Also -- and I know this is excrutiatingly unscientific -- in total, the non-commerical stations don't seem to have lost share, so nothing's evident there (of course, they still could have hurt some stations while others were on the rise).

So, I hope I'm wrong, but I think they'll barely register (maybe even below the joke that is called WYTS), which says nothing about how they would do if promoted on-air and externally. But at the rsik of repeating myself (I'm great at that) low ratings for this station would by NO means indicate the viability of this music mix if positioned and promoted effectitively (iinstead of not at all) -- especially when commercial-free.

Soryy,no time to proof, a meeting's starting.
 
Looks like you're right, Nu_Roo. Tim told me today that in the latest ratings published by the Radio Research Consortium, WHKC was not listed. This presumably happened was because the station wasn't included in enough diaries to appear in its report.
 
Since they do have diaries for non-com, just out of curiosity, does anyone know how RadioU fares?
 
Tim, thanks for getting the info from Tim F. 

I'd never heard of the Radio Research Consortium.  I googled up their website (www.rrconline.org), and discovered that apparently even non-subcribers can run topline Arbitron non-comm topline reports.  I ran one for Winter, and it seems the only non-comms that meet the minimum for Columbus are WOSU-AM, WOSU-FM and WCBE (unless for some reason they only list subscribing stations in the topline report...though I saw nothing indicating that kind of restriction).  So Vibe, it doesn't look like Radio U meets the minimum reporting requirements either.

BTW, WCBE and WOSU-FM each have a Winter 12+ AQH similar to WLZT, WBNS-AM and the Brew.

I recall reading that at some point Arbitron plans to begin merging non-comm ratings data with commercial (already being done in Arbitron's Maximi$er tool), so I'd imagine the RRC's days are numbered.
 
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